CNN has spent the last hour staying on the talking points claiming that every single word from Romney was a lie without any actual facts to back up the assertion. Also being very sure to remind me 500 times that Obama didn’t “cut” Medicare. HA! They suck, but they’ll get this handled as soon as possible.

Conventional wisdom about politics is usually wrong. That is why I often disagree with it.

But I cant recall a time when I disagreed more profoundly with the conventional wisdom that has coalesced around a major news event.

In yesterday’s election, I just didnt see the overwhelming, game-changing victory for Mitt Romney that his supporters are touting all over television and the Internet today.

I didnt see the humiliating defeat for President Obama that some liberals saw as they began their bellyaching about how President Obama managed to lose this election.

Instead, I saw an election in which neither candidate delivered a knockout punch. I saw a match that basically ended in a draw. After all, 52-48% is really within the national “margin of error” isn’t it?.

There is not one moment that I could point to as evidence that either candidate actually lost the election.

15
posted on 10/04/2012 4:45:46 PM PDT
by John Valentine
(Deep in the Heart of Texas)

“I didnt see the humiliating defeat for President Obama that some liberals saw as they began their bellyaching about how President Obama has lost his momentum and could now lose the election.

I saw a serious, substantive policy debate in which neither candidate slipped up or neither candidate delivered a knockout punch. I saw a match that basically ended in a draw.”

True there was no knockout punch. Nor should there be, even in the “Dancing With the Stars” world we live in. No other aspect of what this guy says is true. Just because a liberal jerk “doesn’t see” something doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. A goodly number of “Romney sucks” memes were nicely destroyed. Just like the “War on Women” and the “he’ll prohibit abortion” things got smashed, Romney came off as a much more caring and insightful individual than has been so relentlessly obscured with the endless “murder”, “felon” “tax evader” crap. Those gambits if you’ll recall, also fell by the wayside. He came across as a serious candidate with intelligent things to say. Forgetting the conservative shortcomings we all know about, I believe this was perhaps the first introduction to Romney that many, many undecideds ever experienced. And he spoke of the Constitution and Declaration and he deftly conflated those documents with freedoms and real opportunity. This is different than trying to force vague Marxist ideals into conjunction with utopian memes like 0bama is always doing.

And in that same vein, 0bama came off as a petulant, pouting, and poorly prepared chanter of the same old “millionaires and billionaires” lines we’ve been hearing for years now. Yes, years. All without any apparent improvement in the the lives of the 99%. And I believe the willingness to open up to Romney was created, and THAT may well be the knockout. Not a punch, but an opening door. This has been Mitt’s pattern, and I can’t think of another way to get through the bumper-stickerisms of the lib side, I really can’t. I remain, like all here, less than comfortable with Mitts’ many shortcomings and policy flips. There is nothing I can do about those characteristics. I’m not confident that he will do everything he said he will do. If that makes him a liar, well, OK. But I am perfectly sure that 0bama will do a LOT more than what he promised in terms of how he will create fiat policies and diktats that will negatively affect all our lives. And I’m as sure as the sun rises that he must be defeated.

Finally, neither candidate engaged in that much of a serious, substantive conversation. Compared to a bumper sticker, OK, yeah. But the fact of the matter is that Romney and Ryan have little in the way of a math-functional approach to developing a balanced budget. But whatever they have or don’t have it’s light years closer than anything 0bama has to offer.

The word trick Juan is trying to play is to call what everyone else is doing is conventional wisdom. Wrong, He is the one with conventional wisdom, which is that Democrats always win debates. It just so happens this is a freak occurrence when the consensus of the moment is counter the normal conventional wisdom.

I warned about Williams the day Fox doubled his contract. Here is the article. A lot of Freepers flamed me for this....at the time that is.

Like him or not, in terms of executive leadership Mitt Romney is probably one of the most competent and effective men ever to run for the White House. I'm not a huge fan of the guy, but after having dealt with a number of people at the executive level in U.S. corporations over the last couple of years I was not surprised at what I saw from Mitt Romney last night. This is the way CEOs operate, and many of them have a number of common traits that serve them well and were put on full display by Romney in that one-sided "debate." These traits include: (1) an even-keeled approach to any situation, even an adversarial one; (2) a strong, powerful memory that enables them to pull facts and figures out of thin air without struggling to remember them; (3) an ability to be likeable even if the job requires a sense of detachment; and (4) a strong, almost pathological focus on keeping the best interests of an organization in mind and achieving a set of clear objectives.

As I posted several times in recent weeks, this is the kind of campaign Romney is running. The "organization" in question is his political campaign, the set of clear objectives includes a successful run for the White House, and I can guarantee you that everyone in his campaign is going to do whatever it takes to get this done even if we don't understand what they're doing and/or don't agree with their approach.

There is not one moment that I could point to as evidence that either candidate actually lost the election.

I can, I have watched everyone of these since 1988.

The killer last night was Obama You might want to move on to the next topic Jim.

Every debate has moments that resonate in voters minds. That one is going to stick. Obama looking to the supposed ref to rescue him. The common thread in most voters comments to pollsters is we want a leader who will show us how to get out of this mess

Romney showed he is a leader last night while Obama showed he is not.

Last night Frank Luntz, the gold standard of focus group pollsters, had 24 undecided voters watch the debate with him. 13 of the 24 were Obama 2008 voters.

More the half said the debate persuaded them to vote for Romney. Luntz said he has never seen results like that before.

It really was that bad for 0.

22
posted on 10/04/2012 5:14:32 PM PDT
by MNJohnnie
(Giving more money to DC to fix the Debt is like giving free drugs to addicts think it will cure them)

Hi, I am Juan Williams and this gig on Fox News is a blast. I'm the ridiculous liberal that has to continually say stupid stuff so that I can earn two million dollars a year.

Like O.J., I live in a fancy home in a fancy, mostly white, neighborhood. I eat at the finest restaurants and pal around with other millionaires. Still, I never stop identifying with the "little people" who have actually no place in my life, unless you count my maid.

24
posted on 10/04/2012 5:27:45 PM PDT
by The Citizen Soldier
(Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everyone stands around reloading.)

Romney had the opportunity to rip several new a$$holes for OBAMA , BUT HE PASSED. Romney was taking debate notes, something few people noticed, or commented about, Obama had nothing in front of him.As a result of Romney’s structured approach to debate, there were several places where Romney could have literally killed Obama, slayed him in fact.But Romney passed.

I believe Romney was wrong in cutting Obama any slack. Romney had the opportunity to achieve absolute victory over Obama, but he refused, or cowardly did not want to suffer the slings and arrrows from the left for creating an outright defeat of Obama on prime time TV. Instead Romney chose a subtle defeat, one in which after several debates, Obama is supposed to die from a death of a thousand cuts.The proplem is, that with that approach, it earns few votes from the electorate.

I believe Romney’s failure or refusal to really clearly and convincingly lay Obama out when he had several opportunities to do so, yet refused, was a horrible mistake that may cost Romney the presidency.

Agreed. I have some residual discomfort with Romney, though. First, let me say that I believe he is an exceptionally decent man, with a high moral sense. At the same time, if he truly understands financial issues; which he must in order to run complex industrial organizations...then he is seriously lying about what he OR ANYONE ELSE can do about the current fiscal situation within the US economy without a reduction in GDP that is certain to cause a very, very deep depression. And potentially civil unrest. By this I mean, the amount of spending that has to be cut to move towards a balanced Federal budget (as one simple example) is enormous. And he’s not talking about it. Now, maybe he’s not talking about it because he knows he (or anyone else) would be unelectable if they told the truth; or maybe, as part of his corporate skills, he is a terrific liar. This is what troubles me about the Mittster. Yes, I know this conflicts with my opinion statement that he is a moral individual.

Consider too that there is no shame in a hunter coming home with unspent ammunition - if he bags a big one...>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Obama ,his handlers and the MSM underestimated the hunter. That won’t happen again. Romney will not be allowed to EVER get a clear shot at Obama again.Just watch the fix go in on the remaining debates.

Romney missed the only chance he likely will have to defeat Obama utterly on prime time TV, which he should have done.

Romney had the opportunity to rip several new a$$holes for OBAMA , BUT HE PASSED.

You are forgetting that Republicans are not allowed to do that in the MSM arena. If Romney had started talking like Rush Limbaugh, all the talk would not be about him winning the debate, but about "Who is this mean, vicious, racist bastard who insulted Obama? Of course the President performed poorly - he didn't want to respond in kind!"

Given the MSM's biases, Romney played it perfectly - even Chris Matthews had to concede him the victory.

I do not give a $hit about MSM bias. The fact is that we have a liberal fascist as president bent on the ruination of our country.Romney should have hit him hard enough so that Obama let down his thin veneer of civility. The public needed to see the beast Obama is under that mask.

Romney failed, and in reining himself in, he has done the nation a profound disservice.

Obama did not debate. He struggled to member and mumble talking points.

There is no doubt Obama went in cocky and over-confident and under-prepared. It was a disaster for him. But there can also be no doubt that it won't happen again. These aren't stupid people, much as we'd like to think so. But Obama needs to score the kind of win that Romney did and I don't think that's going to happen. Romney will go in just as prepared and will go toe-to-toe with whatever game Obama brings. At best it'll be a tie for Obama. At worst it'll be another loss.

47
posted on 10/06/2012 5:34:17 AM PDT
by Delhi Rebels
(There was a row in Silver Street - the regiments was out.)

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